In grocery stores, products are arranged in longitudinally extending rows of shelving with aisles between adjacent rows in which the customers walk while viewing displayed product located on the shelves. Often products on sale or product which the store particularly wants to sell are placed on an end display at the end of a row of product shelving. Such an end display may be a plurality of cans of product loaded on top of a pallet or alternatively may be an end display rack with a plurality of horizontal shelves on which products are displayed. However, often on such end displays, there is not enough shelving space for all the product desired to be displayed.
If additional product is to be displayed, additional shelving must be provided. Therefore,, there is a need for a display rack or merchandiser which may be adapted to fit around an end display of product which provides additional shelving. It is desirable if such additional shelving does not interfere with the end display and is complimentary with the end display in appearance.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,085,649 discloses a merchandise display rack which has two sub-assemblies or end frame units adapted to fit on the ends of a central display rack. Each of these end frame units must be fastened to the central portion of the merchandise display rack with bolts or other fasteners. Neither end frame unit is self supporting. The central portion of the display rack has a plurality of shelves extending longitudinally (from side to side). Both end frame units provide additional shelving running front to back and are specifically adapted to be used with only one particular configuration of display rack. In other words, the end frame units are not adapted to be used with different types of end display racks.
Two patents which do disclose self standing display racks are U.S. Pat. No. 679,033 and Design Pat. No. 189,510. However, the display racks which are the subject of these patents are not adapted to fit over an end display of product having horizontally extending shelving. Rather, these display racks are adapted to stand on their own and have a plurality of shelves extending front to back. In addition, the display rack of Design Pat. No. 189,510 has a plurality of horizontal shelves extending from side to side.
None of the above mentioned individual self supporting or self standing display racks are adapted to be specifically used with a conventional display rack having horizontal shelving or with a pallet loaded with product. In addition, none of the above mentioned self standing display racks is adapted to fit over and around a conventional display rack in order to provide additional shelving.
Therefore, it has been one objective of the present invention to provide a display rack or merchandiser which is self standing and provides additional shelving to an end display.
In addition, it has been a further objective of the present invention to provide a merchandiser which is adapted to provide shelving on both sides of an end display located at the end of a row of product.
It has been a further objective of the present invention to provide a self standing merchandiser capable of having at least one header for advertisement purposes secured to the top of the merchandiser.